I want to give an update to how I manage having several vaults now. As you can see, it is actually a combination of one vault and multiple vaults, or one vault that is compartmentalized. As I wrote earlier in this thread, I use a big chunk of my notes at work. I only synchronize those notes with my work computer. For this, multiple vaults helps.
I’ve organized my notes into this folder structure:
- Incoming
- Private
- Pick my brain
2A. General
2B. Work
I have four devices that I synchronize between: My personal laptop, my personal stationary and my personal phone. These I synchronize all my folders via Syncthing. My fourth device, work computer, I only synchronize the folder 2B. Work. At my work office, I open 2B. Work as my vault. (Strictly speaking, I have a top folder where my obsidian configuration files are, and inside that folder is 2B. Work).
Single vault is still my default option. When I’m not at work, I simply open the top folder on any of my personal devices, that includes both 1 Private and 2 Pick my brain. In this way, I practically still have one, single vault. When I’m on any of my personal devices, I can search and link to anything else I’ve ever written in Obsidian.
Pick my brain. The reason I have separated 1 Private from 2 Pick my brain, is that I want to be able to show other people my vault without having to fear stumbling into the parts of my second brain that are too exposing or sensitive. If I want to surf my second brain with someone, I open 2 Pick my brain as a vault and feel confident that we can go wherever we might want to.
Sorting the notes. All new notes created on my three personal devices go into 0 Incoming. At the end of the day, or the following days when I have time, I move all the new notes into their respective places. So, if I had a session of writing notes on things that are related in the least way to work, I put that in 2B. Work and it will synchronize to all four devices. If I wrote something that I deem the least private, and don’t want others to browse around in, I put that in 1 Private. Everything else, that I don’t want synchronized to my work computer, goes into 2A General.
Using Syncthing. After having tried several synchronization services, I’m finally happy to use Syncthing and it has been working with almost zero error for half a year and daily synchronizing over 12.000 notes. Nextcloud could not handle that amount of notes and technical workers had to give up. The distributed synching between four devices mean I have a lot of redundancy.